Byakugō-ji Temple, Shingon Ritsu Buddhist temple in Nara, Japan

Byakugō-ji is a Buddhist temple with an integrated cemetery in Nara, featuring traditional wooden structures and maintained gardens. The grounds combine prayer halls, monk residences, and orderly grave sites arranged in a coherent layout.

Byakugō-ji first appears in records in 1220, when a sutra scroll at Kōshō-ji mentions its canon; the temple was restored by Eison, founder of the Shingon Ritsu sect. In 1261 his successor Dōshō brought the complete Buddhist canon, and a sutra repository was built in 1262. Fires in 1497 and 1520 destroyed the main hall, Enma-dō, Tahō-tō and repository; the hall was rebuilt in the early Edo period.

The temple's name refers to the byakugō, the white curl of hair between the Buddha's eyebrows. It is the 63rd stop on the Eighty-Eight Sacred Sites of Northern Yamato pilgrimage, a route established in the Meiwa era (1764–1772). Annual observances include Emma-mōde on 16 January and 16 July, the Issaikyō ceremony on 8 April, and Prince Shiki's memorial on 15 September.

From Kintetsu Nara Station take the Nara Kotsu city loop bus to Takabatake-chō, then walk about 20 minutes uphill to the temple at 392 Byakugōji-chō. The approach includes the broad stone staircase seen below the weathered wooden gate, with irregular, shallow steps widening toward the bottom.

The temple's Muromachi-period Tahō-tō pagoda was sold in 1917 and its whereabouts stayed unknown for decades; it was finally traced to a villa in Takarazuka, Hyōgo, where a forest fire destroyed it on 19 March 2002. Only the foundation stones remain on the grounds.